Wild horses & burros being removed for Richfield Tar Sands plan

“The document goes so far as to say, ‘the management of wild horse and burro herds is not compatible within those portions of commercial tar sands lease areas.'”

by Grandma Gregg

In addition to the welfare ranchers, here is another major cause of our wild ones being captured & removed & sterilized … please become aware of the Richfield tar sands plan.

The Richfield tar sands has already effected our wild ones and continues to do so as of TODAY with the BLM proposal to rid the White Mountain and Little Colorado of more/all of the wild ones and the same with the Sinbad wild burro HMA (comments due Monday).

The Richfield tar sands plan has been in progress since about 2010 and if you look at the list below you will see that most of these HMAs (plus West Douglas HA) have been heavily captured/removed in recent years.

The document goes so far as to say, “the management of wild horse and burro herds is not compatible within those portions of commercial tar sands lease areas”. How much clearer can it be. They want the wild ones GONE.

How awful. I’m just disgusted. I wish the people of this country, and the world, really, would wake up, quit demanding so much meaningless stuff, and value what really matters, and protest en masse. I’m just disgusted.

So few know what is happening to our wild horses because BLM has lied and told the public there is an over-population. I told the truth to a lady today and hope she belied me. Every chance I get I show pics of my mustang mares but I’m in a small KY town and it’s my word against the assholes. I’ve given out lots of the book, Managing for Extinction, too. Must get more. I pray folks wake up to the corruption before it’s too late –with everything.
Thanks for the tar sands info, Grandma. What a mess ! Destruction like that should be against the law. It reminds me of mt. top removal to get coal.

“Caribou populations have been severely impacted by tar sands extraction. The Beaver Lake Cree First Nation has experienced a 74% decline of the Cold Lake herd since 1998 and a 71% decline of the Athabasca River herd since 1996. Today, just 175 – 275 caribou remain. By 2025, the total population is expected to be less than 50 and locally extinct by 2040.”

Also have to wonder, why removing horses would be a concern; no reasonable horse would hang around long in a place like the tar sand photos show, they would move on. The problem is more likely that they would move into other places where they are not not, causing the BLM to scramble. What enlightened managers, after 44 years we are still managing by and from crisis to crisis (many self-created). I was taught long ago the definition of insanity was to perform the same actions over and over, expecting a different result.

A new report released today from IATP takes an in-depth look at how tar sands have developed from an unconventional, inefficient energy source to the spotlight of the corporate agenda as conventional oil supplies dwindle. Tar Sands: How Trade Rules Surrender Sovereignty and Extend Corporate Rights follows the development of energy policy from NAFTA up to current free trade negotiations to illustrate that while energy sources evolve, one trend remains constant: The protection of corporate profits at the expense of human rights, sovereignty and the environment. With new free trade agreements in negotiation, the time for action is here: The public needs a seat at the negotiating table.

Not sure this explains it for me. If wild horses were left alone, they would move away from the disturbances, and if tar sands extraction took out their watering holes, it would also mean other wildlife (still being managed) would also lose theirs.

If wild horses drank contaminated water and died, the BLM could easily enough shrug that off as unavoidable, or (quite a stretch, admittedly) a “natural occurrence.”

The occasional horse getting hit by a vehicle would certainly not be more troublesome than an occasional deer, elk, or other wildlife. Cattle and sheep fatalities would be more problematic as their owners would sue for compensation.

So I am left with two thoughts. Either the tar sands is just an easy excuse to clear more wild horses off public lands generally, or the BLM is concerned they will move on to non BLM managed lands and trigger a call for removals. One must ask why taking HMAs from horse use is never balanced with ADDING new ones, which could be done in the legal HAs determined in 1971 (many now horseless, but legal for their management nonetheless).

All good questions IcySpots and we don’t know anything for certain except the fact that Wild Horses have been captured and removed from those areas.

You brought up a couple of other good points in previous comments that lead to yet another valid question
You mentioned that you read in the EA that two of the HMAs will no longer be managed for wild horses in the Checkerboard, and other sources indicate they are consolidating some of the areas into larger blocks, and possibly selling off BLM lands in some areas of it as well. I doubt any horses exiled will see their homelands again
and you also wondered “why was the United States Geological Survey selected to do reproductive studies on wild animals because rocks don’t generally reproduce or overpopulate, nor do they migrate naturally”
Good question. I too wonder about that

Thanks to the BLM and their “agreement” with the Richfield tar sands initiative (BIG money):
Colorado
The White River Field Office 2015 wild horse gather was completed on Sept. 24, 2015. The Field Office gathered 167 horses from the West Douglas Herd Area.
Utah
The BLM is preparing to capture about 200 wild burros from the Sinbad Utah HMA and remove about 120 of these and then do “research” with the few remaining wild burros.
Colorado
Little Colorado HMA
The BLM recently captured and removed about 224 wild horses from the Little Colorado HMA and now are proposing to capture and remove more if not ALL of these wild horses.
White Mountain HMA
The BLM recently captured and removed about 475 wild horses from the White Mountain HMA and now are proposing to capture and remove more if not ALL of what is left of these wild horses.
Salt Wells HMA and Adobe Town HMA
The BLM in 2013 captured 668 and removed all but about 79 of our wild horses.
And do we think that these captures and removals and research are done for the sake of sustaining the health, diversity, and productivity of the public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations??? (BLM “mission” statement)

NO

So we see at LEAST 1,600 of our wild horses and burros that have recently and/or will soon be removed for the sake of the Richfield tar sands exploitation ($$$) … and for the sake of the welfare ranchers and for no other reason.

Can you imagine what the country where these nasty tar sands are removed will look like in ten or fifteen years from now? When they run out and they will, just like the oil fields which leaves behind nothing but contaminated water holes, creeks you name it. In Canada the tar sands there destroyed a huge area of trees, wild life disappeared leaving behind total destruction of the environment. This type of oil is heavy and has to be thinned out with chemicals before it can be pumped through a pipeline unlike regular oil it is almost impossible to clean up in case of a leak. Once this stuff runs out the areas where it was dig up will never be cleaned up so you will have areas all over the US that looks like the photo at the top of the article.

What Will Become of the Wild Horses?
By John Fine December 22, 2015
John Christopher Fine is a marine biologist with two doctoral degrees, has authored 24 books, including award-winning books dealing with ocean pollution. He is a liaison officer of the United Nations Environment Program and the Confederation Mondiale for ocean matters. He is a member of the Academy of Underwater Arts and Sciences in honor of his books in the field of education.

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